FORT WORTH (March 19, 2010)--Gov. Rick Perry presented pardon documents Friday to the family of a man who died in prison after serving 13 years for a rape he didn't commit.

Perry met Friday in Fort Worth with the family of Timothy Cole, nearly three weeks after he granted the state's first posthumous pardon.

DNA evidence cleared Cole in 2008, nine years after he died at in prison of asthma complications at 39.

Cole, who was an Army veteran, was convicted of the rape of a Texas Tech student in 1985 in Lubbock.

In 2008, a DNA test cleared Cole and implicated convicted rapist Jerry Wayne Johnson, who confessed in several letters to court officials that date back to 1995.

Perry granted the pardon after the state attorney general clarified the law in January and the Innocence Project of Texas submitted a formal pardon request to the Board of Pardons and Paroles.

“It means the world to me to be here today to look you in the eye and tell you that your son is pardoned,” Perry told Cole’s mother, Ruby Session.

“I know that nothing that anyone in this room, this state, or this world can do could restore Tim to life but we can state clearly, with the full weight of Texas law behind us that your son was no criminal.”

Cole's mother said she hopes her son's ordeal will help effect change and improvement in the Texas criminal justice system.

After meeting with Perry, the family headed to a cemetery to visit Cole's grave.